1895-96.] Prof. M‘Kendrick on Appreciation of Musical Pitch. 43 
father had any difficulty in naming notes, when he, the boy, struck 
them on the piano. He was impatient and even irritable when 
one inadvertently mistook the answer he gave. Thus, if he named 
f | and I said g, he emphatically shouted : “ Ho, no, 
This case is of importance in connection with the question of 
tonal fusion and the analytic powers we undoubtedly possess. A 
person gifted with a “ good ear ” may, by long practice, acquire a 
power something like that possessed at so early an age by this boy ; 
but it is well known, on the other hand, that many skilful musicians 
are deficient in this faculty, and that they fail to develop it by 
practice. One can hardly resist the conclusion that it is a gift 
dependent on the delicacy of the ear and the part of the brain that 
receives auditory impressions, and that each note of a given instru- 
ment has, to such an individual, an undefinable quality or colour 
by which it is identified.* 
* See an article on Amusic ( musilcalische aphasie) by J. G. Edgren (Stock- 
holm), in Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Nervenheilkunde , 1895. The following 
quotation is of interest : ss Bei einer grossen Anzalil von Kindern entstehen 
die Tonbilder vor den Wortbildern, und viele singen, ehe sie sprechen. Bei 
einigen organisiren sich die Tonbilder mit erstaunlicher Leichtigkeit. Reyer 
berichtet iiber ein 9 Monate altes Kind, das die auf dem Klavier angeschlag- 
enen No ten genau wiederholte. Stumpf’s Kind sang die scala exact im 
Alter von 14 Monaten. Der Sohn eines componisten, Dvorak aus Prag, sang, 
als er ein Jahr alt war, den Fantinitzamarsch mit seiner Amme. In Alter 
von 1| Jahr sang er die Melodien seines Yaters, welche dieser auf dem Klavier 
begleitete.” 
